by Jim Bellomo | Jan 1, 2026 | Uncategorized
Just three photos left. I can’t believe it. This has been a fun week (except maybe Christmas Day). Kathleen woke up sick after our rich Christmas Eve meal and didn’t make the trip with me to Olympia to see my daughter and her incredible family. My grandkids are awesome, my son-in-law is awesome, and I loved being there, but it was a lot of driving all by myself. The rest of the week was great. I am very happy that on Wednesday, I will take my last shot of the year, having done the entire 365 without missing a day.
I told Kathleen this morning that I have decided to do another 365 project 
. The last one I did was in 2015, so here we are in 2025, and I think I will start my next one in 2035. Of course, I will be 83 then, but I hope to still be taking pictures.
Here’s the group from this week. If you want to see all the Halloween costumes mentioned in the Christmas Day caption, go to the 365 page (in the menu above) and scroll down to the slideshow for December 25. I think the shot of Keeley is my favorite.
Took Keeley on a 3-mile walk today, and we went to Duck Lake. It’s about 1.5 miles from our house. I have taken photos of this lake before, but never with this much water. Usually, it’s a big swamp or bog, but with all our recent rains, it’s a lake again.
I spent most of today doing one of my favorite things…cooking. I love to braise. It might be my favorite cooking method. Just the idea of something cooking at a simmer for a very long time (in this case, three hours) is appealing. This is for our Christmas Eve dinner. If you have the time, when you braise, do it early in the week and let the meat sit in the refrigerator in the cooking liquid. Then I take it out about three hours before dinner and let it warm slowly. For the last few years, our menu has been this dish as the entrée…Balsamic Short Ribs. Accompanied by a very rich Potato Gatto, a large green salad, and whatever wonder Michelle brings for dessert. As you can see, I make a bunch of the ribs. Lots of balsamic vinegar, beef stock, a ton of onions and garlic, and plenty of oregano.
Out for a walk with Keeley again today, I crossed a walkway over water that you have seen before, so I turned around and shot the babbling brook behind me. I always recommend looking behind you when you take a photo. You sometimes find hidden gems.
Last night was our Christmas Eve celebration with my son, Kathleen’s daughter and her husband, and two good friends. I got to cook for three days (which made me very happy), and later, while we were just sitting around as Michelle got the desserts out (she always brings dessert), I snapped some photos. Yup, they are officially snapshots. But I will think of them as candid portraits. I am really sorry that the ones I took of our friend Carrie and Michelle didn’t come out. They either had their eyes closed or were moving around so quickly that their faces were a big blur. Merry Christmas, everyone. We are heading south to see the other daughter, her husband, and our grandkids.
Kathleen’s son-in-law Brian and one of my best friends.
My son Joshua
Our good friend Jocelyn.
The Love of my Life
Of course, today is Christmas, and sadly, Kathleen was not feeling well, so I made the trip to Olympia myself. This is the biggest reason. I have always loved fooling my kids on Christmas. I am that guy who wraps a ton of stuff and puts it inside bigger boxes that I wrap as well. Once, I even built the world’s worst dollhouse for my daughter as a joke. The real one she had wanted was out in the garage. This year, I decided to give her and her husband some photos to put on the blank walls in their guest room, where we stay. I started with a box containing a picture-hanging kit and a note saying she needed stuff on the walls and that I had taken the liberty of giving her some of my best shots, all printed on canvas. 14 in total. I could tell by the look on her face after she read that note that she was worried she was just getting some of my travel photos, which meant nothing to their family. But that was not to be. You see, since my grandson was born, she had become the master of group Halloween costumes. So I ran big and small canvas prints of all 14 of them. I figured that once you see them opening them, you might want to actually see the prints, so they are on this post as well. Merry Christmas!
Well, no white Christmas for us. The snow arrived a day late. It’s not too much, and it didn’t show up until almost 7:00 pm on Boxing Day, but we still have some white. Let’s hope it’s all gone in the morning…or worse, that there’s more of it.
There is little to say. Snow, sun, blue sky, pond, reflection, beauty, nature. It all makes me happy, one more time, that I live in Trilogy. Our trails are wonderful.
Strangely enough, I took this photo a couple of days ago but didn’t use it. To keep myself honest, I took it again today. I liked it a lot when I took it on the 26th, but then it snowed, so I decided to use that shot. So here it is again. We have a collection of Santas from all over the world. You saw one of them at the start of the month. This one has lights on it, which makes it even better.
Creativity is a wild mind and a disciplined eye – Dorothy Parker
by Jim Bellomo | Dec 23, 2025 | Uncategorized
This was one of my favorite weeks of the entire year. My birthday, a concert in Olympia at Capitol High School where my grandson plays the clarinet, an almost full day with my family, making pizza with my granddaughter and playing games with the whole bunch. I bet you know which one is my favorite this week...it has to be my daughter, grandkids and Keeley from Saturday. It's a total winner.
Continuing our Christmas theme, yesterday we featured a Christmas dog, and today we have a Christmas moose with his little boy. I enjoy taking bokeh shots with the lights shimmering in the background. This guy has lights on him, so it looks even better. Using a 50mm f1.4 lens with a very shallow depth of field really helps.
The young man on the left is my grandson Mason. Tonight, we attended his high school orchestra’s Christmas concert. It was very nice, and it’s great that he is finally in high school, so we no longer have to go to concerts in the gymnasium and sit on hard bleachers. His school has a beautiful concert hall venue. Sadly, it was POURING tonight, and I didn’t want to take my Nikon out in the rain, so I had to shoot this with my phone. I still am okay with it, but it would have been so much better with a camera and a longer lens.
Today was wrapping day. We have finished all our Christmas shopping, and I have to say I have never been so excited about what we got for everybody on our list. I can’t wait to see if they all like it as much as we enjoyed getting it for them. So today, I spent wrapping. This is the rest of today.
For the last three weeks, I have stopped at the Bellevue branch of the King County Library to take a photo of their wall of license plates. Each week, I have found a better photo, so today I went back and got another one. (I now have three weeks of license plates.) They are not real plates but are made from words. Most of them are black and white, so I converted the entire photo to grayscale. I like it better that way.
Today was a REALLY special day for me. My family (kids and grandkids) came to celebrate my birthday. They asked what I wanted to do, and I said I wanted them to come to our house so I could make pizza for them. It has been so long since I have been able to cook a real meal for them, so that’s what I wanted to do. They drove up, and we played games. I got to assemble pizzas with my granddaughter, and I got to spend the entire day with my son, my daughter, my grandkids, my son-in-law, Kathleen and Keeley. It was glorious. My granddaughter, my daughter and my grandson were on the couch with Keeley, and this was the most fun photo I took all day.
Took Keeley on a 3-mile walk today, and we went to Duck Lake. It’s about 1.5 miles from our house. I have taken photos of this lake before, but never with this much water. Usually, it’s a big swamp or bog, but with all our recent rains, it’s a lake again.
As you have probably heard, we here in the Pacific Northwest have had a lot of rain this week and last night’s wind. I wanted to walk one of our Trilogy trails today to see if there was any damage. There were a few trees down, but when I went to take a shot of Cari’s Bog, the biggest impact of the storm was that the bog was full of water. The most I have seen in the three years we have lived here.
I never knew what I was doing until I was done. – Man Ray
by Jim Bellomo | Oct 18, 2025 | Uncategorized
Sadly, even though we had one more night on the ship and then two nights scheduled with the October Bunch in Walla Walla, Kathleen and I decided to leave the ship on our first day in Clarkston, rent a car and drive home. Kathleen has our regular travel cold starting up and has been coughing and sneezing for about the last four days.
I’m having some serious trouble with the after effects of my prostate cancer radiation treatments I thought were behind me last spring. These started while we were driving to Portland, and I’ve stayed in touch with my doctor the whole time (even doing some tests while we were still in Portland). The symptoms would improve, then worsen again. After a particularly rough night on Thursday, we remembered that, on other trips when we felt terrible, two things were true: we made others we were traveling with feel miserable, and we always wished we could be at home in our own bed. Usually, that’s not possible because it would mean flying home and dealing with all the hassles, but since we were somewhere we could drive home, we did (it was a LONG five+ hour drive but worth it). So, I finished the Pendleton post, and now I’m writing this one from our living room in Redmond.
I do plan to finish this trip with my review of the entire cruise, including the service, little problems and, of course, the food. Please look for that in the next few days. For today, it’s just a matter of returning a rental car, going to the Kaiser clinic for some tests and hopefully medication, and just resting. More soon.
The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray. —Robert Burns
by Jim Bellomo | Oct 18, 2025 | Uncategorized
If that headline isn’t enough to grab your attention, nothing else will ?. But it seems like that’s what Thursday was all about. We woke up at the dock in Richland, Washington, where we were to board our “luxury motor coach” for a full-day tour in Pendleton, Oregon, the home of the Pendleton Round-Up, one of the biggest rodeos and wild west shows in the USA, and the home of plenty of cowboys and cowboy culture. When we got to the “luxury motor coach,” we met our guide, Rosemary, who would stay with us for the rest of the day. She turned out to be one of the best guides we’ve ever had the pleasure of traveling with. Born and raised here in the Washington Tri-Cities area, she was a treasure trove of knowledge about both Richland, Hanford, and Pendleton.
On our way down, she entertained us with stories about legendary cowboys, the underground tour we would take upon arriving in Pendleton, and a lot of local history. She even sang to us—quite well, I might add. She showed us a great video about Duff Severe (at right), one of America’s top saddle makers. You might not find that topic interesting, but I found it fascinating. Duff was a legend in the area and had been featured in National Geographic, other magazines, and TV shows. Rosemary suggested that if we wanted to learn more about Duff, we should look him up on YouTube. I plan to do that as soon as we get home.
When we arrived in Pendleton, we passed the enormous Pendleton Round-Up grounds on our way to our first stop, the Pendleton Underground Tour. We had an outstanding tour guide, Sue Ellen, and you could tell she loves her volunteer job. She walked us through an entire block of underground rooms that had been restored and turned into a museum (in their heyday, there had been more than 16 blocks of underground). Here’s some of what we saw.
Sue Ellen starts the tour.
Gambling
Drinking
Sleeping…it all went on underground.
The Underground Tour also had a really nice museum where we could see the work of Duff Severe. As he got older, his arthritic hands kept him from continuing to make full-size saddles, so he started creating miniature saddles as works of art. We got a chance to see his four most famous pieces (created for a casino owner, who passed away before they were finished). Each one represents a suit of cards. They were so beautiful and intricate, I shot photos of them both full-size and in close-up.
Hearts
Spades
Spades. Full saddle
After our tour and viewing the exhibits, it was off to lunch at a nearby restaurant. A nice salad, a sandwich and a cookie. Nothing special, but good. Then we had free time to explore. For many, that meant shopping, but of course, for me, that meant photography and a nice photo walk around the downtown core. Here are the shots I got.
The entire groups hears Rosemary talk about a statue of a madam.
Other bronze sculptures lined the downtown streets. So well done with amazing faces.
Pioneers…
A famous Black cowboy…
And the aforementioned Madam.
Even a local football legend.
This black beauty caught my eye.
And the old time signage I have seen on this trip has been awesome.
See what I mean.
Autumn was in full swing. It was sunny but chilly.
A door I really liked.
The Umatilla River flows just north of downtown.
This older gentlemen cowboy was a great subject.
And of course, it’s almost Halloween.
They did some inventive stuff.
Looking through downtown from the river.
There is a story to this sign but it’s too long to explain.
A typical downtown scene.
After our free time, it was back on the bus for a visit to the Tamastslikt Cultural Institute. I know that sounds a bit boring, but it was truly an amazing museum and cultural center all about the local Native American tribes. Both the good and the bad were covered in detail. If you are ever in Pendleton, this is worth a trip.
All of that and not a word about nuclear bombs? Well, on the way back to the ship, Rosemary told us more about the Tri-City area, including the Hanford Nuclear site, where the plutonium was developed that went into the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, to help end World War II. She even had a very interesting video that she let us watch on the way back that showed the role that Hanford had and continues to have in our nuclear research.
That about covers our day in Pendleton. I had two other photos I took that I really loved, but they are kind of artsy and didn’t fit anywhere else. Here they are for your enjoyment…or not ?.
The Columbia at dawn.
Rosemary (our guide) had these awesome boots.
On to Clarkston, Washington and the Snake River. More later.
May your belly never grumble, may your heart never ache, may your horse never stumble, may your cinch never break. –The Cowboy Blessing
by Jim Bellomo | Oct 16, 2025 | Uncategorized
When you take an ocean cruise (on a BIG ship) you have sea days. That’s a day when you don’t stop in a port. Usually, the ship has lots of things for you to do on board. Well, yesterday was the river equivalent of a sea day, so I will call it a river day.
We had three locks to pass through on our way up the Columbia, so it meant it would take a little while to go east. I believe if there were no dams and locks on this river, you could go from Astoria to Clarkston (where we disembark) in about two or three days. But there are locks and dams, so why not embrace them the way the ship did yesterday, as we passed through the largest of the locks on the Columbia, the John Day Lock.
I was up early to shoot our first lock passage before dawn (and to work on yesterday’s post) and got a single photograph of that lock. It’s quite a gritty-looking photo, don’t you think?
We creep through our first lock in the dark.
From that point on until the sun rose, it was just a smooth sail upriver. When the sun finally gave me the golden hour, I was out with my camera to get some shots. I really like these, so…if you click the first shot, you can scroll through using your arrow keys or by swiping. And PLEASE… don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…And take a second to blow up the last one because it might be the second-best panoramic shot I have taken…ever.
The sun creeps over the eastern horizon.
Just pretty sunrise shots
So I won’t have any special captions for them.
Just sunrise on the Columbia River
Which yesterday was golden
The landscape changed as the light changed.
Evidence is here.
Traffic on I-84 that runs alongside the river
On the way we passed Marydale Museum…
And Stonehenge.
Barges went by.
And one of my best panoramic ever. I LOVE this shot. Make sure and click on it to enlarge it so you can see what I mean.
After my early morning photo shoot, it was off to breakfast and then back up to take pictures as we passed through the John Day Lock, the largest on the river. It is what is known as a guillotine lock, as the doors don’t open to the side, but lift into the air.
We are entering the massive lock.
Now inside, the door is massive.
Looking back as the door closes. You can see Mt. Hood in the background.
Talk about huge. This door is holding back an entire river.
While we were going through the lock, the crew started a dance party. I love taking photos of people (it dates back to my years in the yearbook industry) so I just stood at the rail above them and shot photos. I took more than 140 but here’s the best.
From line dancing to the Macarena…
The crew was…
Dancing up a storm.
Even our historian/lecturer was getting in the spirit.
Lots of great moves out there.
And lots of great faces.
After the party, it was back to exiting the lock and heading further upriver, where I could get more photos. Here are some of those.
We are now at the level of the upper river after the lock as filled.
Looking across the John Day dam.
Behind us the huge guillotine door.
Next to us a fish ladder.
The dam and lock were built by the Army Corps of Engineers.
And thousands of gulls appreciate the place they created for them to perch.
The dam in better light.
The birds fly off as we come up next to them.
A barge passes to our left.
With a tug pushing it.
The wind turbines dotted the tops of the ridge all along the Washington side.
Mike and I have our annual shoot off.
There goes that barge.
That was about it for the photos. Soon after I took the last set, we left the Columbia Gorge and entered the flat, arid, desert-like landscapes of Eastern Washington. Last night during dinner, in the dark, we transited the last lock leading into Lake Umatilla. It was dark, and I was eating, so no photos of that ?.
Today, we are docked in Richland, part of Washington’s Tri-Cities (along with Kennewick and Pasco). We have a full-day excursion to Pendleton, an Old West town located just south of here in Oregon. Should be fun. More about that tomorrow.
Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters. ? Norman Maclean,
